LANZATECH

Carbon transformation - shorts to SAF

Based in - Skokie, Illinois Website - https://lanzatech.com/

CEO - Dr Jennifer Holmgren is the author or co-author of 50 US patents and more than 30 scientific publications. Dr Holmgren joined LanzaTech as CEO in 2011, having previously been VP Renewable Energy and Chemicals at Honeywell subsidiary UOP,. where she drove the development of aviation biofuels.

LanzaTech was founded by Sean Simpson in 2005 in New Zealand, he now serves as the company’s chief scientific officer.

LanzaTech captures CO2 at source, and uses it to create products. For example, in May, the company partnered with Danone totransform carbon into plastic.

LanzaTech’s press release talks about sustainable PET (polyethylene terephthalatepolyester) bottles made from captured carbon, but the uses for PET are much wider. QuotedintheChemicalEngineer, CEO Dr Jennifer Holgrem says the use cases include packaging as well as textiles, so for fashion.

In fact, at the end of last year, LanzaTechworkedwithfashionretailerZara to produce a collection of dresses made from carbon-recycled materials.

This was followed up by a second collection in the Summer, According to Dr Holmgren, “LanzaTech has the technology that can help fashion brands and retailers limit their carbon impact by recycling #carbonemissions to make fabric.”

Among other things, that makes us wonder when we’ll see the first cabin crew uniforms made out of carbon - or seat covers.

As well as Danone and Zara, LanzaTech has worked with L’Oreal on turning captured carbon from a Chinese steel mill into bottles made from recycled polyethylene, with Coty on sustainable perfume and with Unilever in producing the world’s first laundry capsule made from carbon emissions.

LanzaTech is the highest valued company in this report, in March it announced that it would be going in a SPAC deal valued at $2.2 billion, which is expected to complete in the Autumn.

Investors include ArcelorMittal, BASF, the New Zealand Super Fund, Khosla Ventures and the US Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

LanzaJet is also collaborating with Twelve (featured later in this report) in creating ethanol, a common alcohol used as fuel, and an ingredient in hand sanitizers, personal care, and household cleaning products.

LanzaJet

LanzaTech’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) spin-off is called LanzaJet. Investors include British Airways, Mitsui Shell, ANA and Suncor Energy.

The aim of LanzaJet is to produce ten million gallons of ethanol based drop in fuels by next year. As with the core LanzaTech business, the process involves capturing emissions from industrial plants like steel mills, or from landfill sites.

The resulting fuel has an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, compared to regular fuel.